Have you ever thought about the kinds of questions your doctor asks you and how strange it would seem for you to ask the same questions back to your doctor? Have you been getting exercise? Do you have any family history of this? Exercise habits and family history represent one level of personal information, but it could go much further.
We don’t ask our doctors the same questions they ask us because there is a certain expectation inherent in the doctor-patient relationship. The doctor asks questions, monitors key data, makes a diagnosis, and then provides some recommended course of action. The relationship between doctor and patient is imbalanced and includes a professional distance—it’s purposely impersonal in some ways. It is imbalanced because the patient yields a high level of deference and authority to the doctor. The client must trust the doctor’s expertise.
The professional distance in a doctor-patient relationship keeps the relationship somewhat impersonal. For example, I don’t typically discuss my recent weight changes with casual personal friends, but I don’t think twice about sharing the details with my doctor because it’s not personal with him. The doctor asks questions and gathers information to understand the situation, not out of any personal curiosity or interest. My doctor-patient relationship is ultimately transactional.
The transactional relationships we have with those who provide us medical services are not bad or dysfunctional relationships. They provide what is needed and expected from both parties and work because of the professional deference the patient affords to the doctor. As consultants, we can have productive relationships with clients that are transactional. We can ask questions, look at data, make a diagnosis, and even prescribe a course of action, all while maintaining professional distance. However, engaging with our clients in the adaptive work of changing mindsets, behaviors, and systems requires going beyond treating our clients as cases and making diagnoses of complex problems based on limited information. For adaptive work, we need to move to deeper relationships.
When the work calls for a deeper relationship
To help clients make better decisions and take strategic actions that move them toward their goals, consultants need to cultivate more personalized, interdependent relationships. These relationships are personalized because both parties see each other as people—not just roles or cases. When we see others as just a role, we shortcut the opportunity to understand them in depth and within the context that shapes their needs and choices.
In system change, people are not just roles. Their beliefs, values, and dispositions affect their actions and interactions with the system and other people. For a consultant to help a client take actions that help move a system, initiative, or outcome forward, the client needs to share more of who they are. At the same time, the consultant needs to maintain curiosity and interest in the client as a person and unique actor in the system.
This type of relationship is characterized as interdependent because the client and consultant depend on each other for the success of their shared work. The client trusts the consultant and depends on them to be helpful in getting the client to their goals, to ask good questions, to facilitate good decision-making, and to provide useful guidance on the change effort. The consultant, in turn, trusts and depends on the client to share what the real challenges in the system are, ask vulnerable questions, provide information about the capacity of the group, and facilitate connections to others in the school community.
Both the consultant and the client can share more, be more vulnerable and honest, and identify more attuned solutions to the complex problems in schools when they cultivate a personalized, interdependent working relationship with mutual trust. Each is empowered by the other to bring their best thinking and efforts to their shared work.
When the client and consultant understand their interdependence and can personalize their relationship, both are supporting each other’s effectiveness. In some cases, a transactional relationship is productive for solving a specific problem with a client, but consultants should be mindful of when their work with clients demands a deeper, interdependent relationship.
To support you in assessing and developing your client relationships, we’ve created a tool to help you consider your clients’ needs and the opportunities to deepen the relationship.
